Leslie Bartosh, CEC, AAC, FMP

  Prototyping a Vegan entrée. This dish is based on one I did a couple of weeks ago.   It is well on its way but still needs a little tweaking. Chick peas with tomato and lemon.   With couscous with cilantro, mint and almonds. Hearty, comforting, easy. Thank you, Diversified Ceramics for the great bowl to use.   #LifeLongLearning #LifelongTeaching#FamilyFood As always your questions or comments are welcome.  Until next time. Bon Appetit Y'all Leslie Bartosh

  Dry cured, and aged, 24-hour cold apple wood smoked bacon. Part of the 30+ pounds I cut by hand last Saturday. Just one of a wide variety of items I can provide guidance on how to make in your operation. #LifeLongLearning #LifeLongTeaching #Bacon #FamilyFood As always, your questions and comments are welcome.  Until next time, Bon Appetit Y'all Leslie Bartosh

  Salad with Fried Soft Poached Egg This is an updated, reenactment of a salad I did some years ago.    Topping a salad with a soft poached egg is not new.  Breading that soft poached egg and deep frying it adds a whole other dimension to the idea.  This salad was influenced by what a few chefs were doing with the idea of breaded fried egg on top of salad.  Often times, the egg was soft poached in a pouch of plastic wrap.   Sometimes it had an Asian influence by being marinated for a time period in soy.   Most of the time, the egg was breaded in fine bread crumbs. I never played with the Asian influence idea even though I like it   And I chose to use Panko breadcrumbs because I really like the crunch when they are used on a fried items.   The egg for this salad was poached in the traditional manner.   I like the shape better.   The egg was poached and then shocked in an ice water bath to stop the cooking process.   To fry the egg, it was breaded using a traditional breading s

 My latest entry into the “chicken sandwich wars”.   Sliced “Korean Style” BBQ chicken thighs, slaw dressed with gochujang flavored mayonnaise on a toasted, house made, sesame seed bun.   Thank you, Daesang America, for the great products to work with. #LifeLongLearning #LifeLongTeaching #FamilyFood As always, your comments or questions are welcome. Until next time, Bon Appetit Y'all Leslie Bartosh

  A simple roast chicken and vegetables. Such a delightful combination of elemental flavors.    Properly executed, it is a moist, flavorful and delightful dish. This one had all the good qualities.    Crisp skin. Tender, flavorful and juicy meat. It was delightful.    A greatly reduced glaze served on the side added great richness. #LifeLongLearning #LifeLongTeaching #FamilyFood       As always, your questions or comments are welcome.   Until next time, Bon Appetit Y'all Leslie Bartosh

 Sometimes you just need a bowl of pasta. This plate of Linguini with Sauce Pomodoro and sausage did the trick! The pasta was accented with house dried Thai basil flowers. Thank you Diversified Ceramics Ceramics for the great bowl to work with. #LIfeLongLearning #LIfeLongTeaching #FamilyFood As always, your questions or comments are welcome. Until next time, Bon Appetit Y'all, Leslie Bartosh

  Korean Style BBQ Chicken Thighs One of the great things about BBQ is its versatility.   Sometimes you may want something spicy or you may want something saucy or even a combination of the two.   BBQ gives you those options and much more.   Most cultures have some form of BBQ or smoking or grilling.   There are lots of thoughts on what the difference is in these cooking methods.   I think it is somewhat universally agreed that grilling is done over a heat source.   The heat source can be charcoal, wood or even a gas burner like you will find on a someone’s patio gas grill.   Sometimes a grilled item will be basted with a sauce of some kind while it is cooking.   This type of cooking is classified as cooking with direct heat.   The item being grilled is directly over the heat source and is usually a quick cooking, naturally tender item. Smoking can be accomplished by using hot or cold smoke.   When hot smoking, the air/smoke temperature in the chamber where the meat is, is hot

  Sometimes the best laid plans of men go astray and dinner plans fall apart.   Such is what happened when Friday afternoon chores stretched into Friday night.   Luckily, I had a few items “laying around” that combined to make a nice dinner.   I am tempted to call this salad a “Dagwood” salad.   It is not quite a chef or cobb salad.   It is not really an antipasto.   Though it does share some characteristics with all three. The base for the salad was Kalera  Krunch.   And yes, the Krunch is real with this lettuce.      Other ingredients included thin sliced red onion, sliced sugar snap peas, pepperoncini, kalamata olives, cherry tomatoes, and Julienne carrots.   Toppings included sliced: cucumbers, aloha bell pepper, ham and cheese and a few slices of an aging Asian pear.   The apple wood smoked ham was made in house.   The cheese was a 2-year-old extra sharp white cheddar that was house smoked with pecan in January 2021.    I am never quite sure what to say on how old the che

  Sometimes, in the haste of life, we forget about dishes that we really enjoy.   Such is the case with this mustard glazed, roast pork loin.   I made this dish many times years ago and really do like it.   But as I have explored different cuisines this delightful dish went onto the back burner and stayed there. These pictures were taken “on the fly” as our dinner was being produced at home.   The plate that is pictured is not restaurant quality, it is for home.   If this was for a restaurant, the whole baked sweet potato would be replaced with a duchess sweet potato.   The roasted pork is quite pretty and could easily be carved and served table side. The mustard glaze goes on the raw pork loin and it is baked.   Originally, I made this glaze using Dijon mustard, liquid smoke, whole dried thyme and black pepper.   This rendition used three different mustards; two house made coarse ground mustards and small amount of Dijon mustard; the liquid smoke, thyme and sprinkle of coarse gr

  Having survived the freeze of 2022, we decided we needed a preview of summer. This meal of grilled Riverence steel head trout, fresh corn on the cob and salad was just right to get us in a summer frame of mind. The trout was simply seasoned with lemon pepper and griddled. #LifeLongLearning #LifeLongTeaching #FamilyFood   As always, your comments or questions are welcome. Until next time, Bon Appetit Y'all  Leslie Bartosh